


Dragonfire

by SusanaR



Series: Desperate Hours Alternative Universe G version (DH AU G) [29]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Action/Adventure, Cousins, Dragons, Dwarves, Elves, Gen, Healers, Hurt/Comfort, Serious Injuries, Uncle-Nephew Relationship, dragon - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-21
Updated: 2014-02-21
Packaged: 2018-01-13 06:42:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1216420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanaR/pseuds/SusanaR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The King of the Greenwood knows about Dragons, and hopeless causes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragonfire

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I am using several of Emma and Kaylee's OCs (Baralin and Linwe) in this story, with their kind permission.

All Thranduil knew, when he first came to true consciousness again, was the pain. It was a constant. But as with all things, there are levels of pain. The King remembered dragon fire, burning half of his face, his left shoulder, and his chest. He took a breath, hardly even noticing that he couldn't close his jaw properly because the other side of his jaw....just wasn't there. 

This was bad pain, Thranduil recognized, but not the worst. It was almost a good day, so far as the recent days Thranduil could hazily remember. The worst day had been screaming in pain until his throat was raw, being dragged away from the greatest of the great lizards by Baralin and the dwarven prince Fror. It had taken Thranduil a long time to remember what they'd even been doing, or why he had thought that going to attack the fearsome lizards in the north was a good idea. He still wasn't clear on the details of that, or even of exactly where he was. He should work on figuring that out. 

Thranduil looked up at the ceiling with one good eye. The worked-stone above told him that he was in his own Northern Hall. Safe, or as safe as safe was, these days. 

He took a deep breath. Why not, after all. He could. Some of the air he breathed in through his mouth didn't stay in his mouth because one cheek was a burnt, damaged wreck. But he could still take deep breaths, enough air finally made it to his lungs to take deep breaths again. 

"You're lucky to yet be breathing, dear cousin." A soft, familiar voice remarked from Thranduil's right. 

"Elrond." He murmured, as his older cousin came up to greet him. Holding Thranduil's good hand gently, Elrond smiled, but his gray eyes....deep worry and receding panic and abiding love and....and more than a hint of oh-Valar-Thranduil-my-elfling-cousin-what-have-you-done? 

"The dragons were stealing our goats." Thranduil said defensively. That didn't come out quite legible - one side of his jaw wasn't working well. He repeated it, more slowly. 

Elrond shook his head. "When you are more healed, we will discuss this. At great length, Thranduil. But I will not speak of anything save how glad I am to have you still with us, not until you are entirely well." 

"It was the right thing to do." Thranduil continued, ignoring Elrond's decision, "We can't fight the accursed spiders and the foul orcs, and my forest as it sickens, and then be opening a northern front with dragons. It can't be done, Elrond. Had to be avoided, if at all possible. A quick strike, kill enough of them that they won't come south again." 

Thranduil had never heard Elrond curse before, but he cursed now. Not at Thranduil, but more at the situation. 

"I want to help you, cousin, and I am not sure how." Elrond said, when he had finished berating fate and other powers. 

"You do help." Thranduil assured him. Greenwood stood on its own, but Elrond came to help as healer whenever he was needed, and sometimes even when he wasn't. Thranduil loved Elrond like an uncle, and Elrond came to advise him when Thranduil asked, and most often when he didn't, but many of those times he did need advice. If Greenwood needed anything - stone workers for their caves, swordsmiths, dried herbs, food, if Greenwood ever wanted for anything, Elrond would provide it at as low a price as Thranduil's pride would let him accept. 

"I think we might be helping more, for awhile." Elrond said dryly, "Uncle Celeborn is sleeping in the next room. He has been beside you often, these past months, as you've woken and faded back to sleep." 

Thranduil wasn't sure whether to be happy or worried about that. He was very glad that Uncle Celeborn was here, but at the same time, did not want to hear the lecture that Celeborn had probably spent those months composing. Wait..."Months, Elrond? Did you say that I have been sleeping and drifting for months?" 

"Aye, my dear little cousin." Elrond answered, returning to Thranduil's side to stroke his arm in reassurance, and going so far as to place a very gentle kiss on Thranduil's good cheek. "It has been six months, since Linwe and Baralin first brought your burned body back to us, from the north. Legolas felt it when you fell, and sent as many healers as could be spared from the Hall to meet you en route. They worked marvels, Thranduil. Truly, they...you should be proud of them all. Especially Nestorion, and Galad, and..... 

"And Theli, whom you favor." Thranduil finished, with a sneer. Not so much for Theli or Elrond, but because he did not want to think about having been so weak, about all of the emotion of the days to come. Yes, he was glad to be with Elrond, for their help, and he would lean on Elrond and Celeborn because he would need them. Only as much as he needed them, but...Thranduil had to be strong. And hearing about how he had needed healers to work miracles to save him was not something that made him feel strong. 

"I do favor Theli. If you tire of him, send him to serve me in Imladris." Elrond answered, half-teasing, as his light healer's hands tended to Thranduil. 

"No." Replied Thranduil, "No poaching of my elves." The pain was wearing on him, but this comfortable old argument did a fine job of distracting him while Elrond ministered to burnt bits of Thranduil that the King didn't really want to see. He'd have to look, soon, but he'd trust Elrond to know when. At least for now, until he felt stronger. 

Elrond raised an eyebrow as he began gently working an unguent onto a part of Thranduil's left leg. "Poaching, Cousin? Nay, only borrowing. Just for a few centuries. I could loan you my oldest sons, in exchange." 

"Don't you dare." Thranduil growled. He liked Elrohir and Elladan, one on one. Loved them, even, and Elrohir was one of his favorites amongst all of his many cousins. But together, Elrond's twins tended to do things like...make a new chemical mixture that attracts spiders. And spill it, all over the castle at Emyn Duir, drawing to their former home every single cursed spider in the forest. That had necessitated their retreat to the Northern Hall at least a year before Thranduil would have conceded it. But also a season after Celeborn and Elrond had argued for it, so at least someone was happy, even if their being happy made Thranduil more annoyed. Thinking of that incident, which Legolas had been involved in, albeit peripherally...

"Where is my baby?" He asked Elrond, heart in his throat. "Where is Legolas?" Even though Legolas was of age and past, he would always be Thranduil's youngest child, his baby. 

Elrond smiled, gentle and wry and understanding. "Legolas is playing regent, and doing so rather well. Herdir and your aunt feed him many of his lines, and your other advisors and kin help as well. But he listens better than most elves his age, and has some good suggestions of his own, from time to time." Like sending the healers, apparently.   
Thranduil relaxed a bit. "Legolas is well, then." 

"As well as can be expected." Elrond corrected. "Better, now that you are getting better. I have sent for him. He will arrive just before you fall asleep again. Should I tell him that you are already dreaming, and to come back soon?" 

"No." Thranduil decided. He didn't like the idea of having any of his children, particularly his baby son, see him so weak, but Legolas had probably seen him worse, over the...months. He could use the reassurance of seeing his youngest son. And his oldest, as well. Thranduil frowned, "Where is Thalion?" His foster-son had been supposed to stay at the Northern Hall, to support Legolas. 

Elrond's smile faded a bit. "In the north." 

"Did we succeed?" 

Elrond paused. 

"Have the dragons retreated, Elrond?" Thranduil roared, the words half unintelligible as the painful side of his face throbbed. Thranduil began pushing himself up with his good arm, ready to demand the answer to his question. 

"Daro, Thranduil!" Elrond ordered, more sharply than ever Thranduil had heard him speak. He stopped trying to get up, and stared at Elrond, who was hovering over him and checking his bandages. 

"You haven't done any great damage, this time, but if you do that again, elfling cousin mine, if you put back this recovery in any way by your hard-headed stubbornness, I will make you regret it, if I ...If I have to lock you in a small room with Galadriel to teach you meditation for a century until you have finally learned something." 

"I think that I'd rather die." Thranduil said honestly, quite taken aback. 

Elrond smiled, but it wasn't really a smile. It felt like a threat, the threat of someone who loved him, yes, but a very real threat. And to think, Thranduil had often preferred Elrond to punish him, when Thranduil was a child, because Elrond was likely to go light on him. Maybe the twins had turned Elrond into a frightening disciplinarian? Or maybe Elrond just didn't like dragons. Thranduil didn't think he did, anymore, either. He also thought that whatever pain medication Elrond had given him might be making him a bit...loopy. But he hadn't lost track of the most important point. 

"Elrond. Did we succeed? Did we bloody the dragons enough that they have left the foothills for the Grey Mountains proper?" Thranduil asked intently. 

Elrond sighed. Laying a gentle hand on Thranduil's shoulder, he explained. "The dragons have withdrawn, back into the mountains. You fell just before Asgareth, the great female dragon...." 

"Who breathed fire. Elrond, she breathed fire." 

"I know, Thrani-muin-nin. I know." Elrond squeezed his hand gently. 

"Cold drakes aren't supposed to breathe fire." Thranduil protested. 

"No, they're not. She wasn't a cold drake, Thranduil. She must have been, at least in part, something older and worse. I am sorry that you had to meet her. I am sorry that you did not tell Celeborn or myself that you were going. We have fought them before - we might have been able to keep the casualties lower. You were lucky, to lose only so many as you did. From how your elves described her, she could have killed you all easily." 

Tears fell down Thranduil's face as he began to remember how many had died beside him. "I led them to their deaths." He murmured, hating himself for that. 

"No, Thranduil." Elrond said sharply. When Thranduil's blue eyes turned to him, Elrond explained, "They followed you, because they, too, believed that if the dragons were not stopped, they would attack the wood and kill much of what remains to you. Thranduil, YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN WRONG." 

"Not much good, to them." 

"A lot of good. Every soldier fights so that his family might live, be safe, and grow. They all had families, or someone they cared about, here. And they succeeded." 

Thranduil relaxed, just a little. "If we succeeded, Elrond, then tell me - why is Thalion still in the north?" 

Elrond tensed. "Did you make a...deal, with the dwarves?" 

Thranduil frowned. That didn't sound like something he'd do. He didn't hate dwarves like Celeborn or his other family members who had lived through the betrayal by dwarves in Doriath, but he didn't like them, either. Too standoffish, and stone-loving. But wait, there had been some dwarves whom Thranduil had liked, during the War of the Last Alliance, when their King Durin IV had brought his army to fight beside the elves and men. 

One of those dwarves had been named Fror, like the dwarven Prince and his trading party they had rescued from the dragons when they began their attack in the foothills of the Grey Mountains, last week...well, some months ago and last week. 

Thranduil had liked this new Fror, too, and the way he abandoned his wagons and ordered his people to stay to help the elves fight the dragons even after they could have gotten to safety. Seeing a dwarf chop off a cold drake's foot with an axe was a happy image that was now etched in Thranduil's memory. They had actually fought well together. The cold drakes could fly, but they had to land to attack properly, without flame. The dwarves attacked them low, and the elves attacked them high. They'd killed five or six, by the end of the week. More than enough to make the immortal creatures reconsider whether it was really worth trying to extend their territory into Thranduil's wood. 

Thranduil and his Captains had been considering a retreat. They'd offered to stay with Fror and his smaller group until they reached their mountain. But...Fror had asked them to go further, up and around the settlement of dragons they had just killed. There was a mining party, in the hills. Their mood high, and not opposed to killing more dragons, Thranduil and his captains had agreed. Well, most of them. 

There were dragons, by the mine. Including she who called herself Asgareth, who spoke and breathed fire. Thranduil's heart sped up, even thinking of her. 

"Relax, cousin-mine." Elrond soothed him, "You are safe here. And even if you did agree to have your Northern patrols escort the dwarves from the Grey Mountains to the Long Lake, there is no harm in that. In fact, it is quite a gesture of good will, and should make an ally of Thror's people should they settle there." 

"I....I did what?" Thranduil tried to remember. He made himself recall standing beside Linwe and the practically-vibrating Baralin, as Fror mourned for his people. Only two of the hundred dwarves in that mine had survived. They were fighting their way back, after Thranduil had sent Linwe and a squad around and above them, with elven and dwarven engineers and blast powder, to explode part of the cliff above and bury Asgareth in the falling rocks. 

"She is dead, Thranduil." Elrond assured him, bringing him back again to the safety of the moment. "The rocks held her, though they did not kill her. But they held her down long enough for your elves and the dwarves with their arrows to finish her off, stab by cut." 

Almost, Thranduil could feel sorry for her. That was no way for anything to die. But better dead than alive, for that one. Then, Thranduil remembered...

"I made an agreement with Prince Fror, that if they gave us a reasonable supply of their dragon-slaying arrows, and a chest of moonstones to reinforce the safe store houses at the edges of the different patrol territories, that I would order an escort for Fror's father King Dain, and his people, so that they could leave the Grey Mountains in safety." Thranduil told Elrond. Then he frowned, "Nothing was said of an escort all the way to Long Lake. Just out of the Grey Mountains." 

"Ah. Well, Fror was caught in the same blast of fire as you, Thranduil." 

Thranduil let out a pained breath. "He is dead?" 

"Yes. You and Baralin were the only ones to survive, of those of you who dared to distract Asgareth." Elrond's hands held Thranduil's unburned hand, cradling it gently. The touch anchored Thranduil to the here and now, reminded him of so many other times, with Elrond. Kept him in the now, or the distant past, rather than in the midst of the dragons and the fire. 

"Fror's people should have honored his bargain. He was the son of their King." Thranduil said hoarsely, thinking of the brave young dwarf, and how tragic it was that his life had been cut short just like that. 

"Fror was the youngest son of the King. Dain, the King, may have honored his word. Dain also died, leading forth a party to rescue Fror and the miners. Your elves met their survivors on the way down the mountain. Thror, Dain's heir, led your guard and litter bearers through his tunnels. It saved over a day in getting you to proper healers, Thranduil. They may have saved your life." 

"So, they leveraged that into an escort all the way to Long Lake?" Thranduil hazarded, his blue eyes sparking with temper. How dare the dwarves use the blood of their own Prince, and of Thranduil who tried to save him, to make a better bargain?" 

"Linwe knew that the time might save your life. He held the command, and agreed to the escort." 

"And the arrows, and moonstones?" 

Elrond shook his head. "They have agreed to provide the moonstones, but are haggling over the size of the chest." 

Thranduil hissed in irritation, wishing that he could pace or roll his eyes. Elrond reached out to soothe him again, explaining, "The arrows they have denied, saying that Fror did not have the authority to offer them, as they take so long to make and require the services of the greatest craftsmen." Elrond paused. 

"But?" Thranduil prompted. 

"But, there were five arrows used to kill Asgareth, and of those, three were salvageable. Fror's bodyguards gave them into Linwe's keeping. They sit in the storerooms below your halls." 

Thranduil laughed painfully. "Not worth the price." 

"No. But, something." 

Thranduil found the strength within him to ask, "Elrond? Am I going to recover from this? Well enough to lead my elves into battle again?" 

Elrond didn't hesitate. "Yes. Or rather, it depends on how much stubborn determination you can bring to the task of healing." Elrond smiled wryly, "So I think that you should be fine, in time." 

"How much time?" 

Instead of answering immediately, Elrond took off his robes, and then his tunic. Thranduil watched with interest as his cousin's undershirt followed. He had not often seen Elrond naked. Perhaps for swimming, or maybe when Elrond had been injured during the war, but not for long. There were some scars - maybe more than on a normal warrior elf, but they would heal in time, even for Elrond. It just took longer, from what Thranduil understood. 

"Watch carefully, Thraduil. I will only do this once." Elrond said. Then he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Thranduil watched, as the smooth, unmarred skin over the ribs on Elrond's right side turned into a gaping, burning, hole. The gross, terrifying not-wound continued over Elrond's right hip down under his leggings. Elrond took another deep breath, and smooth skin rippled over the wound again. It was as if it had never been. 

"And that, Thranduil," Elrond said softly, his own eyes haunted, "is a burn from dragon fire, which destroyed bone and damaged organs. It took me only seven years to heal well enough to return to battle, but then I had the advantage of healers who had been trained by the Valar and Maiar, and...and I had Elros, and some of the strength of our Maia heritage, as well." 

"I'm sorry." Thranduil offered. It seemed like a weak thing to say, but he truly was. Elrond's tension eased. He smiled fondly at Thranduil, "It is kind of you, to worry about my wound from two ages ago. Your own wounds will heal, dear cousin, if you are determined to succeed in making it so. But it will take time, possibly a decade or more. It will take my assistance, and that of your healers, and even Galadriel." 

True, dragons were worse than Celeborn's annoying wife. Still, it was rather a joke, at this point, "Must she come?"

"Fifteen years, at least, without her. Dragon wounds are magical. Her assistance would make it so that I could concentrate on other parts of your healing. It would save time." 

Time was important. And Thranduil would have every excuse to behave appallingly. "Tell....I suppose Legolas, to extend an invitation." It would be the first time Galadriel had come to his Wood since before Legolas had reached the age of reason. Thranduil wondered what they would think of eachother. He wasn't sure he cared. He'd care later. She'd best not predict death, or disaster, or...or dwarves, for his son! 

"No, Thranduil." Elrond said gently. "Once you are well enough to travel, we will go to Imladris. I have more power there." 

"I don't want to be healed by your ring, Elrond. I don't trust it." 

Elrond sighed. "It is not entirely the ring, Thranduil. I have more power in the land I have loved, protected, and ruled for thousands of years, than I have anywhere else. As do you, here. There is a reason we will stay here until you are out of danger, and why we will return here before your healing is complete." 

It was hard, so hard, to trust someone else. But Thranduil was in pain, and he did trust Elrond. "It shall be as you say, cousin." He agreed, closing his eyes wearily. 

"It will be well, Thranduil, in time. You will see." Elrond promised. Thranduil believed him; he had never known Elrond to break such a promise. 

"I will send Legolas in." 

"Yes. And Thalion, when he returns. Oh, and Elrond?" Thranduil asked, stopping his older cousin at the door.

"Yes, Thranduil?" 

"Will I be able to do that?" Thranduil used his good hand to gesture at Elrond's side, with its magical disappearing dragon-fire scar. Elrond smiled slightly and shook his head, "Perhaps. It depends on how good a patient you will be." 

Thranduil sighed, and began to calm himself, so as to put on an act of feeling better than he did for his youngest son, who had certainly suffered enough these last months. At least he could trust Elrond to keep the visit short, and to pull Legolas away if the youth became overwrought. Thranduil, himself, would not become upset. He would not let himself. He had to be strong. He had no choice.


End file.
